Comments on: Another Colombia Is Possiblehttp://dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/
a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justiceSat, 27 Sep 2014 17:28:19 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1By: Ramsefallhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-25820
Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:40:19 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-25820Mr. Wiles — Since when is there free press and free opposition in Colombia? The most powerful and pervasive newspapers, radio and television are all controlled by the oligarchy and have been for decades. Because the right is represented by wealthy business owners, free press in the form of opposition from the left is tolerated by suppression, at best. As for political opposition from the left, if 4,000+ members of the UP being assassinated over the course of a few years in the 1980’s indicates free opposition, looks like we’ve got a long way to go.

The quasi-democratic system in Colombia has not prioritized investment for the impoverished in any form, in fact, nearly 80% of its funding through Plan Colombia is directly earmarked for fumigation, advanced training for its special forces and continued anti-Farc/Eln operations. Like Central America, the peace process in Colombia has also been long and difficult, yielding ineffective results since Pastrana left office. Uribe hasn’t sought open channels of negotiation with either the Farc or Eln to the same extent as he has directed open aggession against both groups and citizens of the countryside through his official military and his paramilitary AUC.

Good point on identifying the indolence felt in the country, hence the plummeting voter turnout rates of the past two elections, falling below 46% in 2006. This, however, is not an indication of strong belief in national structures, as low voter turnout is directly proportionate to a waning confidence in their state establishments. People don’t vote when they loss hope in a flawed system, hence a continued decrease in polling stats, just like the US or anywhere else where democracy is failing the people while strengthening corporate allegiance.

The problem with terrorism and violence in Colombia will not come to an end if the Farc and Eln are eliminated. State oppression was a regular occurrence long before the Farc rose from the blood-stained soils through the 1950’s and officially entered the socio-political spectrum in1966. If the Farc are eliminated from the equation, the state will once again have regained complete hegemony over the people.

Have you forgotten your history? Insurgent groups are a product of state oppression, which is why we don’t see these entities in countries like Switzerland and Norway which have governments that take care of the people. However, once you look at the long list of insurgent groups in Latin America, and why they made a stand to begin with, one can only deduce state neglegence as the primary culprit.

It seems that you completely misunderstand the conflict in Colombia, or at least you’ve established your opinion based on what the oligarchic-controlled press has released to the international public.

]]>By: B. Sterlinghttp://dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-5833
Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:45:29 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-5833I am a long lost relative of Robert Wiles, if it is the same R.Wiles from Pgh. I have been looking for him for several years. I would like for you to forward my e-mail to him! If it is him he will respond by email, I hope! I know this is an awkward position to put you in but I would really need your help and again send this person my email. The common denominator is Pittsburgh if he has an attachment to that city he is my uncle.

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP

]]>By: Paulhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-2318
Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:00:37 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-2318Robert Wiles’ comment is evidence once again of how political debate concerning Colombia is often reduced to a black and white, guerrilla/president polarization. The clue was in the title ‘Another Colombia is possible’, Robert.

It is clear that the Farc has lost any political credibility and ideological justification – not that pursuing an elitist guerrilla strategy was anything to be supported in the first place – but it is undeniable that the Farc still have some influence among those Colombians who have never seen any social investment by Liberal and Conservative (and much less Uribista) administrations.

Progressive social programs that redistribute wealth and land, and that also involve the democratisation of Colombian society and the participation of those excluded from it – particularly the 3 million desterrados and potentially the 4 million who have emigrated or fled the country – would be a start in ending poverty and inequality, and hopefully, any remaining attraction the guerrillas have.

Military offensives have consistently failed, and as the US is finding out in Iraq, are likely to perpetuate violent resistance. The Polo Democrático offer an alternative to the state’s violence, to the paramilitaries’ violence (which, despite your claims to the contrary, receive the support of 25 per cent of Colombians, while only 6 per cent think their massacres and murders are a ‘problem’), and to the guerrilla’s violence.

It is President Uribe’s favourite tactic to associate any opposition to his authoritarian militarisation policies with the guerrillas, but this intolerant attitude is having less and less effect. You say that it is not the right time for the left, but fortunately Uribistas don’t get to choose what the right time is – Colombians are starting to decide that for themselves.

The constant attempts of the Colombian right to divert attention to Venezuela don’t work either – it was the Venezuelan right who tried a coup – and it is the left who are winning elections after elections in Latin America. As to your claims about ‘freedoms’ in Colombia, I assume what happened to the Unión Patriótica, or the attempted assassinations of Polo Senators mean nothing to you. I have already written on Colombia’s ‘free press’ here:

The ‘Another Colombia is possible’ article is a comment on the possibility that this country could finally turn away from violence, dismiss the failed imported policies of the United States and join the rest of the continent in the 21st Century, and it is this possibility that has the Uribistas desperately trying, as your one dimensional comment shows, to associate with terrorists a democratic, progressive and rising political movement.

]]>By: Paulhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-2312
Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:03:30 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-2312Colombians have never been ‘asleep’, Manuel. From the Thirties, progressive Colombians participated in President López Pumarejo’s ‘revolución en marcha’ and demonstrated and went on strike in his support when the right attempted a coup against him.

After Gaitán’s assassination, sectarian violence and the elitist ‘bipartisan’ National Front governments either suppressed or forced to the margins any further expression of progressive politics until the Unión Patriótica organised in the Eighties – only for their activists to be massacred in their thousands by the narcos and the paramilitaries.

The Polo is just the latest organised political expression of Colombians’ desire for progressive social change, but the millions of votes they have achieved, and the thousands of activists that they have, are just one aspect of how people here are organising for ‘another Colombia’.

For much more information on the indigenous, civil rights and community and barrio organising movements, go to:

]]>By: Robert Wileshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-2182
Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:49:22 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-2182I don’t agree also with this view. The BIG PROBLEM of Colombia’s endless problems is exactly this; a misunderstanding of political [historical] and social problems in Colombia, which Europe and Democrats in the United States tend to not understand at all. Europe believes that Colombia’s war is one of the State against FARC and ELN rebels that are trying to overthrow a “corrupt dictatorship”, which is not. Colombia is not like its neighbours, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru, where Presidents are simply overthrown by the people. And not even as Panama, where US troops can come and arrest the crooked President. Colombia’s leftist guerrillas (they were leftist, not anymore) had really admirable ideological grounds and goals to pursuit in terms of social wealthfare and equity as they begun; but as soon as the drug business appeared, they left their original basis for drug trafficking and killing. Advanced countries as Denmark and Sweden might support FARC’s cause for what it was, but not what it REALLY is today. In Colombia, there’s FREE PRESS and FREE opposition. People don’t like or sympathize with paramilitary thugs, not even less with guerrilla bands. Colombians want to be rid from them. Colombians also wish for social progress, yes, we all know that a large chunk of the national budget should be spent in Education, Health and Housing rather than in the spoiled inner war against FARC-ELN-AUC terrorism. But the country simply can’t. Right now. The country must be pacified in order that there’s no argument on behalf of the Bogota government to deny social investment. Colombia’s budget is eaten up by the war effort, and many do criticize this, but how else would you invest money in poverty if there’s always the threaten of terrorist groups aiming to overthrow the democratic system? Colombia is taken steps (not Uribe, but society as a whole as it approves his initatives) in bringing peace accords with such terrorist organizations as ELN and AUC to reality. That they have their flaws, there’s no doubt. But there can’t be comparison with South Africa or Central America; in the latter, peace processes were long and difficult, if one remembers.
Colombia’s left gained a large historic number of votes because the country is changing, Colombia’s neighbours have changed. Colombia is standing alone with US policy in a continent that has given its back to US foreign policy. But Colombia, unfortunately, is yes, a conservative country. There is no chance even in left senators and representatives to discuss gay rights and all that other stuff so thriving in quarters as Europe or Massachusetts. When Colombia functioned in a bipartisan political basis, liberals representing the left were elected, and commentators used to say: “a president chosen by a conservative country who this time voted left”.
I say that the time for the left is not this; Colombia would had to exterminate terrorism before people can get interested in any social program. The left has is flaws there: sometimes, even in the worst moments, when a whole country is mourning for example an act of terrorism committed by FARC, because of them and only their fault, left leaders turn to pick up on the government and it’s institutions. If the left had a different position towards the “supposed, but no longer leftist” FARC, for instance, I’m sure it would gain greater support from the people. Is not a matter of left-right, is not a matter of people rejecting leftism and modern socialism: it is Colombians rejecting terrorism and anything that supports or sympathizes with it. Colombians are fed up with violence; the consecuence is that they have become an indifferent and indolent nation, even they have lost some of their patriotism. But it is the strong and deep belief in their ground national structures that they had kept adrift. I will not dare to say that Colombia is blind and deaf to social problems and inequalities, thus poverty. It is not how reality looks like. But they have the terrorism problem, that must be finished, in order that they can advance into a moderate and constructive socialism. For that, the disponibility of the budget is needed. But not expecting the government, the State, or people, to fall into the arms of killers and thugs as FARC, ELN and AUC members had been.

People can’t speculate or write mere lies about such a difficult country to understand. Paul Haste completely misunderstands the whole Colombian problem, siding blindly with the left and attacking greatly the right, exactly the roots of Colombia’s 50 year’s struggles. You don’t talk of possibilities of coup d’etats or dictatorships in Colombia nowadays. That’s not possible there, as in such other countries, eg, Venezuela, can happen. You don’t speak of leftist parties being harrassed or silenced by official authorities, in a country with the best and most sophisticated system of speech of all South America. Private channels, magazines and newspapers are a proof of that. As long as the Colombian left sides with the people and not sympathizes with the “false left” that is FARC or ELN, no chance they’ll have on winning the elections, or even to contribute with the end of its internal war. So, my question is: With whom are they really and ideologically sided?

]]>By: Manuel Moraleshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-2123
Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:30:07 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/another-colombia-is-possible/#comment-2123I think this is a very poor view of the history and the present circumstances of Colombia low intensity civil war. This is a very complex country and we as Colombians are “sleep” this is the land where “nothing happens” and will stay this way a lot of time. Uribe´s regime is a dictatorship.
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